Day 3

Today was our first shift; we were on hospitality today, which means welcoming guests and making sure everything is ready. Before we began, we went to a 'worship', which is the openening of every day. It looks like a church service, but it is typical for Corrrymeela. When you don't feel like participating you can also just sit there, listen to music and do nothing at all. The worship was in a building called 'The Croi', which means 'the heart'. Everything in this building symbolised something. After this service, at 10:00, we started our shift. One group arrived the same morning, so we had to make sure there was enough coffee and tea. Also, treats had to be prepared and set ready. Our leader was Alex, he told us what to do and explained us how to do so. He was a very nice and funny man, and I liked working together with him. I also got to know other new people, like Alfonso, who was a volunteer as well and had the same shifts as I did. He was also very nice, and his wife (also a volunteer) as well. I got to know a lot of new people, Kiera (volunteer), Bertie and his wife (old man and woman, staff members), Ruth (a new volunteer), Aafke ( a Dutch lady, as staff at Corrymeela) and her man Mick, Gail (a volunteer) and Catriona (I had e-mail contact with her). All the people I met were very nice, enthusiastic and interested in why I was volunteering at Corrymeela. I really liked to get to know them, because I felt it gave me a welcome feeling. When the group had a session, we had to clean the room. At 13:30 the group had a coffee break that we had to prepare. It finished at 14:00 after which we had to clean again. We were off at 16:00. Then, we went to Ballycastle to look around and we had dinner at the main house in Corrymeela.